


Orphan

by AlterImpulse



Category: Xenogears
Genre: Angst, Billy gets some awful news, Body Horror, Child Soldiers, Dubious Science, Extreme angst, Gen, Harm to Children, Heavy Angst, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Monsters, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Orphans, Post-War, Sad, Unethical Experimentation, set at the end of Disc One
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-05
Updated: 2019-03-05
Packaged: 2019-11-12 08:17:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18007196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlterImpulse/pseuds/AlterImpulse
Summary: The orphans Billy could not save....





	Orphan

**Author's Note:**

> A short fic set soon after the end of Disc One, inspired by rewatching the battles in the awesome Twitch livestream of the game by @michigrim and @worst-unicorn - and the name of some of the Wels in Krelian’s Lab.

The metal tags clinked against each other on the ring to which he had added them. Thirty of them, and although he told himself that each one that had fallen to his hands, then to his sword had been a mercy killing, even he was not sure at that point. 

They were not human or demihuman or even a recognizable species of any sort anymore. Yet, he knew what they had once been from… everything even before he, the one assigned to go through everything after the battles for anything useful, had found those tags.

Despite their size and grotesque appearance, despite that they were Wels,  _ monsters now, _ even when they would engage them? Their demeanor had been almost playful, inquisitive, they of all that were there, unlike the drones, unlike the guards, unlike most of the other Wels - had not been  _ trying _ to instantly kill them, although, being smothered by them would have done the job just the same. They seemed almost as if they did not belong amongst the guard forces, as if they had just been thrown in on someone’s whim, as if exactly to make what had to be done more painful.

And those tags, amidst blood and bone if one fought back, and simply on a lifeless body if it had fallen to his initial strike - the tags that read  _ Orphan, Aquvy Region _ , and were tagged with the number for “recycling,” except, apparently, they had been seen as valuable guards after the outbreak of plague that year had decimated the Solaris Guard Forces to its lowest numbers ever.

Myyah was twisted like that. Like the God she served. Like the Gazel in their sustaining storage. Like everything that had created that place…like he knew  _ he was,  _ at that place he had himself been integrally been involved, where he had happily engaged in the cruelty himself, convinced it was for the good of the Empire, for the good of getting back into space, of creating Mahanon…

Citan looked down at the tags once more. He knew to whom these must be given, although that weighed on him. He knew Billy needed to know what had happened to them - including the one who he himself had killed in their escape from Etrenank - yet somehow that felt even  _ worse _ than having let Fei and Elly eat the rations, than having pushed Fei to his breaking point. Billy already seemed to be well aware of reality…

But in this case, it was not informing him of reality so much as giving him a chance for closure, for complete knowledge of what had happened.

Billy sat on a small bench in the park there in Shevat, and seemed to be off in his own world as he watched the birds, the butterflies, amongst the flowers. That beauty of nature was something Citan himself loved about Shevat - the place just seemed so beautiful, so aesthetically pleasing. “Do you like this as well?”

“Of course.” Billy said, and made room on the bench for him. “It reminds me of the spring blooms in Aquvy. We’re so close to the South Pole we do not get much, but we have like one month like this.”

“In Shevat here, it is all of the time.” Citan smiled despite the news he carried in his bag on that chain. “It is beautiful. Yui introduced me to it. In fact… we are going to work on planting some flowers together. In memory of those lost in Etrenank this last month.”

“Were Shevat and Solaris not mortal enemies?”

“We were.” Citan brushed a fallen tree petal from his kimono. “Yet Yui understands the loss I feel. And Shevat here seems to find it tragic rather than celebrating its victory. So… we are creating a memorial for the innocents lost to our war.”

“That sounds a good idea.” Billy said. “By this point, we have all lost so many. I am afraid we will lose Fei too - it seems you haven’t done very well in arguing for him.”

“Because I am not even certain I should. I  _ love _ him, but what if enabling him to live is itself consigning yet more to die?” Citan reached into the bag. “Speaking of death, there is something you need to know. Did… did Gebler ever visit your orphanage?”

“Once every year.” Billy looked down at his hands, and seemed near tears, as if he already  _ knew.  _ “The first year, when I was thirteen, they took ten and Isaac took one. The second year, they said only five were special enough. Last year… they took fifteen. I allowed them… I already know what happened to Bishop Stone’s special selection, the same things… the same things he did to  _ me. _ ” His eyes seemed angry, cold, yet as if he wished he could just let go and cry. “But… those had it better. The Gebler people told me they were to be trained as soldiers in Jugend, and… I knew there were worse fates, and I could only provide for so many.”

“I am certain you understand you were lied to there, as well.” Citan almost felt an overwhelming sense of guilt, of shame as he pulled out the key ring full of tags. That he could be the one to make Billy hurt even more than he already  _ did _ … nonetheless, it had to be done. “You do remember the odd Wels, the ones who just wanted to embrace us and talk to us and jump on us, the ones we still had to kill because they did not know their strength and-“

“Yes.” Billy looked down at his hands once more. “The one blocking the exit that wouldn’t move when we had some actually skilled soldiers bearing down on us rather than those guards who failed training but were used anyway. I… I yelled at it to just move and let us past, but it couldn’t understand and grabbed Fei and began choking him…”

“If only… that child could have stayed with you. You would never have faced them as a Wels.”

“What do you-“

“We ran into many of those in Krelian’s laboratory. Before I could get to you and the others.” Citan took the key ring and handed it to him. “I often dealt the killing blow, and for that, I offer my deepest apologies.” He looked down at his own hands. “I hope they are at peace, somehow. And I wanted to offer you the opportunity to ‘bury’ them at the memorial today.”

Billy’s eyes widened as he looked over the tags. “Orphan, Aquvy Region? These… these were who they took from me? They didn’t go into Jugend but…”

“They were made into Wels.” Citan finished for him, and looked away. “Unfortunately, it was another lie. I thought it would be better you know the truth, even though I worry for you knowing.”

“...Thank you.” Billy took the chain and the tags.

“Do you wish to bury them at the ceremony today?”

“Absolutely  _ not. _ ” Billy glared at him. “You killed them, and I want you and Dad to give them a better sendoff. These tags… you tell me what they can be made into, as you made Buntline.”

“I could craft them into Renmazuo.” Citan said, and reached out for Billy’s hand. “I shall do that. For you and for them, so they may fight by your side against what remains of Solaris. And someday, alongside myself. Because regardless of what happens to Fei…  _ you and I _ have some unfinished business with Krelian, with Myyah, and with what she represents.”

“That we do.” Billy said. “You would help me seek revenge?”

“Absolutely. I have a daughter, myself, as you know. If someone turned her into a Wels, I would be beside myself in rage. And you cannot go alone. So… even if somehow we cannot rescue Fei, we will go together. You, myself, Sigurd, and Jessie. This… was inexcusable, and I will do whatever I must.”

Billy clasped him in a tight hug. “At least you’re on our side now. And I will attend that memorial…” he said. “I knew their names. Do you want to hear each one?”

“It is a way I can atone for my own harm, so yes.”

“They are in my notebook.” Billy pulled out the notebook and flipped through it. “Enoch. Rihat. Brunhilde. Vaniah. Ava. Rei. Micah. Ira. Woldemar. Nicola. Myra. Ada. Adam. Skye. Sachia. Niels. Elsha. Laliya. Gina. Eisir. Gilad. Johnny. Gerani. Dara. Sharus. Brenda. Theodor. Beatrix. Stone. Zaine. Those are the names of the ones that were taken…”

“I shall put their names on the work I do. They deserve more than ‘Orphan, Aquvy.’ They deserved more than being left to stop us...and to die from my…”

“Don’t blame yourself so much for that.” Billy looked at him sternly. “Keep in mind what you are directly at fault for, but… you were not the one who chose to turn these children into monsters and use them to slow down an attack. And… by that point, I think what we did… was the right thing. The only thing better would have been if we could have guided them out and back to Aquvy to live in the wild, because…”

“There was no retrieving them, and those bodies were themselves a sentence of suffering.”

They both stood there in silence for a few moments, before walking up the path to where Yui was already planting flowers for the memorial - forget-me-nots and the crystal flowers that only had grown in Etrenank at that point, perfect fusions of nanomolecular glass and organic plant, among others.

Billy took one tag from Citan, with a quick nod. “The others go on the Gear somehow,” he said. “But this one stays here at this war memorial. As… a dedication to the ones who always have the most to lose.”

Someday, this city itself would fall, this memorial itself only being more wreckage in a field of snow on a destroyed planet. Yet, for now, as he and Yui and Citan finished the planting, the placement of the objects, everything else to get it in order, it stood as their own attempt to make a degree of peace even while waging war.

The tag, attached to a small tree, had no name. None of them did, and Billy had no idea which orphan had been which Wels. It seemed hopeless to try to assign them - after all, that had been part of the process - their minds, their identities, themselves ripped from bodies then sewn into absolute horrors.

“You will represent them all here,” he had whispered to the orphan tag. “And the others shall carry me into battle to protect those I did save. Again, I am sorry… if only… I had known.”


End file.
